A plaque with a quotation hangs from the wall above my desk. It has been attributed, in various forms, to Albert Einstein:

âIf we knew what we were doing, it wouldnât be called research.â

Like so much of what Einstein said, this quotation communicates a very important idea in a very simple way. The path to discovery is seldom straight. Rarely does the reader of the final research have the opportunity to understand how the journey of discovery unfolded.

Einsteinâs words came to mind as I read through the articles in Â âThe Exceptional Companyâ collection. Â The articles appeared prior to the publication of The Three Rules by Michael Raynor and Mumtaz Ahmed,in May 2013. The book is a culmination of Deloitteâs âPersistence Project.â Ironically, that name identifies both the subject of the research (explaining sustained, superior financial performance) and after seven years in the works, an attribute that helped the authors see it to completion.

These eight articles appeared (with a single exception) in Deloitte Review between January 2010 and January 2013.Â Together, they provide a rare window into that determined but sometimes meandering journey that is original research.

Two of the other articles illustrate the underlying motivations of Raynor and Ahmed. âA Random Search for Excellenceâ attacks what might be the most fundamental question of allâwhen you see what looks like a superior performer, how do you know if they are really goodâor merely lucky? I consider this piece to be required reading. âRank Ignoranceâ builds on these findings to help identify the factors that should go into identifying truly superior performance and, by extension, the weaknesses of nearly every âsuccess studyâ business book that has ever been published. (Hint: As Einstein would argue, itâs all relative.).

Taken as a whole, âThe Exceptional Companyâ collection stands on its own as a source of important insight not just about what drives superior performance, but how to understand performance in multiple dimensions and, even more important, how to tell the difference between skill and simple good fortune. In the delivery of that insight, these âexceptionalâ articles invite readers to the deeper explorations provided in The Three Rules. The understanding gained there will satisfy the first requirement specified in another of my Einstein favorites:

âYou have to learn the rules of the game. And then you have to play better than anyone else.â